Security for computer documents accessed by multiple computer users in multiple locations may be an important concern for businesses and other organizations, particularly where documents are created through collaborative processes, like multi-party, multi-organization document workflows.
In such collaborative processes, which can vary in nature widely (from contract reviews, to research grant proposal submissions, to shareholder presentations, etc.) multiple users (e.g. in many different locations) may contribute material to a document or revise the document's content. In a large organization, users in a collaboration may be located all over the world. Collaborative processes can also take place between organizations. In such settings, users from several different organizations may access the same document.
In each of these situations, the security protections available on the computers of the users may vary widely. To an organization such as a business, much of the information contained in a document may be considered private or confidential. Some of the information may be extremely sensitive. Access by multiple users in different locations, where users may not belong to the same organization and/or where users may access through unsecured computer systems, creates a risk that sensitive or otherwise confidential information contained in the documents may be compromised.
Another concern in a collaborative process may be with authenticity. Issues of authenticity cover both the user accessing a document and the document itself. “Hackers” and other users who may be unauthorized (and who even may be posing as authorized users) may gain to access a document. Where unauthorized access has been made, the integrity of the document, and its genuineness, may also be compromised.
Issues of security may be more complex when the document accessed (in a collaborative process or other process) is made of parts such as a separately-editable text and images.
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